Democrats mum on successor to retired state commissioner

By Casey Seiler

Published 9:45 pm, Thursday, January 30, 2014

It's been almost three months since Commissioner Evelyn Aquila, a Democratic appointee to the state Board of Elections, announced her intention to retire from the four-person panel that oversees elections and campaign finance laws.

Aquila left the post in mid-December, but the state Democratic Committee has yet to fill the vacancy.

The board is scheduled to hold its next meeting Tuesday.

While the selection of a new commissioner officially lies with Assemblyman Keith Wright in his capacity as co-chair of the state party, it's understood that Gov. Andrew Cuomo — who named Wright to his party perch — will play a key role in selecting a replacement for Aquila, who was the panel's only female commissioner.

But neither Wright's office, nor state Democratic Committee Executive Director Rodney Capel, nor Cuomo's press office would respond to inquiries about the vacancy. A spokesman for the elections board didn't respond to a phone call.

The absence of a Democratic commissioner won't allow any kind of procedural coup by Republican Co-Chair James A. Walsh and Commissioner Gregory Peterson against Democratic Co-Chair Douglas Kellner: State law holds that "All actions of the board shall require a majority vote of the commissioners prescribed by law for such board" — and since the number prescribed is four, a unanimous vote of the three remaining members will be needed.

The Board of Elections spent much of last fall taking heat from Cuomo's Moreland Commission on public ethics, which in its December report concluded that the board "lacks the structural independence, the resources, and the will to enforce election and campaign finance laws."

In last week's executive budget proposal, Cuomo took up the Moreland panel's recommendation that enforcement should be handed over to an independent entity operating within the board but under the autonomous control of a "chief enforcement counsel."

Appointed by the governor with state Senate approval, this chief counsel would serve a four-year term and be designated as a district attorney for the purpose of enforcing election law.